A War of Shadows
by WritersWayOfLife
Summary: Aloy wanders still, six years after the battle of the Spire. She returns to Meridian between her travels, for Avad's council. The last time she returned, Avad had a new project. The fighting pits across the Sundom. But then animals begin popping up. Not the boar or geese. The people are taming beasts long thought to be dead, and Aloy will find out where they're coming from.
1. Aloy

Aloy visited Elisabet every year, on the day she first found her. She would travel to the house, GAIA called it a ranch, the same week every year. She liked to ride on the Strider, imagining Elisabet riding whatever lived back then. She'd heard GAIA call it a horse in one of the data logs and tried to picture it, thick like the Strider, stocky and powerful, with hair like a fox's or racoons, because that was the only hair she'd ever really felt on an animal. She'd tend the gardens, weed and prune the flowers. She'd never been one for such domestic things like that – the only preservation in her nature was her will of the fighter, as Uthid called it. But she couldn't deny the pride she felt when the purple petals of the Dusk Blossoms bloomed in the shape of a Focus around Elisabet's grave.

She'd started working on the house as well. It started with cleaning out the rubble. She'd begun on her own, then overridden a Broadhead to help speed things along. A year later, during her third visit, she began tending the gardens, keeping the area clean, planting the Dusk Blossoms, and then brought Sun Drop seeds from Meridian to plant around the perimeter. On her fourth journey she brought two Shell-Walker's and a heard of Lancehorn's with her, and the three of them began to build, plough and make the earth into something she was sure Elisabet be proud of. Her fifth year was the first she sat back and enjoyed the work she'd done... for all of half a day, before she decided to add a few personal touches. An attempt at a fountain soon became a man - woman made lake when she discovered an underground water supply, perhaps once an old well. She brought fish to live there, trout she'd carried in a wooden bowl from the river a few miles away. She built an archery range in the cliffs behind the ranch, her own mini proving course. She had to keep at the top of her game, after all.

Today, though, it was hot, and she had no wish to run her obstacle course. She'd fed her fish, weeded her gardens and made sure the house wouldn't be falling down anytime soon. Now, she was sitting amongst her flowers. Her fingers played with the grass stems growing from Elisabet's grave, marked by a stone Aloy had carved herself, into the shape of a triangle – she was no Stone Mason, and it was as close to a Focus as she could get.

"So... my year? Do you really want to hear about my year?" Aloy laughed, as she usually did when she talked to herself or Elisabet. "Avad is still requesting I take up permanent residence in Meridian, but you and I both know that's a not going to happen. But... I'm on his council. Yes, I finally caved. But it's only part time, when I'm travelling through the Sundom. He tells me he seeks my advice, but..." But she knew what he really sought, but saying it out loud made it something she would eventually have to confront. "I shouldn't be so harsh, he mourned Ersa for a long time. I think it's what made him choose Errand as the Oseram envoy for the council. He was the only one he could share her with." Aloy rolled her eyes to the sky. "I shouldn't complain. They're both good to me. Errand doesn't drink as much as he used to... what does he call it? Social Drinking." She laughed, shaking her head. "I wouldn't call how he gets 'Social'. Let's see, the good, the good... Ah! Talanah's making progress with the Hunter's Lodge. They accepted a Banuk warrior two seasons past, I think her names Linea. She sings her songs all the time, but Talanah actually likes that. Avad's new reform is moving slowly, but at least it's moving.

"It's spring now. It's always spring when I come see you. It's when your flowers bloom." Aloy smiled at her Dusk Blossoms, reached over and plucked one between her thumb and first finger. She twirled it, her grip soft. "GAIA never told me if you liked flowers, but I think that you did. You liked watching things grow, watching them become what they were always meant to be." She placed the flower on the grave, tucking it in amongst the grass stems.

The sun was beginning to sink towards the horizon. Clouds alight with fire raced each other across the sky, gold in their wake, chasing the sun, twilight stars twinkling in their wake. Behind her, Aloy watched her shadow crawl across the ground, silent, looming larger every second.

 _As the Sun lowers, the shadows grow. Yet when it rises a Shadow is never more clear. Can the Shadow every truly escape from the love it has for the Sun?_

She frowned, forcing Nil's anecdotal crap from her head. She was surprised she remembered it at all, a guilt rushed that realisation that she was in danger of forgetting the Hunter's voice, nature, being. It was the only thing she didn't like to talk to Elisabet about. Nil was the only one unaccounted for after the battle of the Eclipse. Others died, some in the field, some later from their wounds. But his body was never found, and none of the medics reported treating any wounds for a man of his description. It felt wrong to speak of a man so intent on being forgotten. All by her.

"I never really understood why he wanted to die by my hand," Aloy murmured, not diving into those memories, more like dipping her toe in. "Maybe he did. That battle happened because of me. Maybe it was the only reason he showed up at all."

The wind blew, nimble fingers running through her red locks. _Kissed by fire,_ Nil had called it, and her cheeks flushed against her will. Elisabet's breeze soothed the traitorous burn in her cheeks, like a whisper in her ear that it was okay to think about Nil sometimes, to feel guilty over his death and smile at his laugh or the way he smiled with one half of his mouth. It was hard not to feel guilty all the time, but she always listened to Elisabet.

So she thought about her last hunting trip with Talanah instead, recounting the tale for Elisabet. They'd been tracking a Snapmaw in the southern Sundom's rivers, rumoured to be twice the size of a regular 'maw. Talanah had been on point, Aloy letting the Sun Hawk lead. She smiled as she remembered the bushes rustling, and Talanah rushing for the sound. A boar had been snuffling around and, spooked by the screaming huntress, had chased her all the way into the water. Talanah had stunk of wet boar for a week. Aloy could smell it even now.

The wind blew through the clearing, a chill to it, a warning. Aloy's head tilted as Dusk Blossom wafted through, mingled with the fresh breeze and the smell of wet fur. A deep splash brought Aloy to her feet, whirling on her fish pond. The water rippled, crashing over the rocks, something swirling in the depths below. Her bow was outside the Dark Blossoms, laying in the grass. She rolled for it, notched her arrow and drew as she came up on her knee, aiming at the pond. Boars liked her lake in the spring and summer seasons, the shallow water and mud bottom a haven for their itchy heated skin, and she was low on furs. It would need a clean, good thing it was already wet.

She waited. One heartbeat. Two. Her arm never shook, her sight never wavered, but when the water burst apart her arrow loosed wide from shock, shattering against the rocks. A dark shaggy head bobbed above the water, droplets running through sopping wet fur. Small, black eyes found her, blinking slowly. It took one step from the pool, then another, four feet lumbering out of the water and onto the ground. A fish wiggled in its huge snout, caught between white teeth as huge as her spear head.

Aloy backed up. Her bow dropped from her fingers, shock a cruel and ill-timed paralysis. She'd never seen anything like this beast before. It ambled towards her, swallowing its catch in one gulp. The noise it let out was like a boars grunt mixed with a Ravagers roar. It took another step towards her, and she took one back. It stopped and cocked its dark head, another string of grunts and snorts coming from its odd, pebble black nose.

Blue light filled her vision suddenly and she screamed. The furry thing shrieked, scrambling backwards so much it tipped back into the pool. Her Focus zeroed in on it as it came gurgling to the surface. "Subject: Organic," a female voice announced.

"GAIA?" Aloy gasped. She hadn't heard her voice outside of a data entry before.

"Mammal," the voice continued. "Species: Kodiak bear. The largest of the bear family. This one seems to be in the later stages of infancy, maybe a year. Gender, male. The first bear in one thousand years."

"GAIA, are you there?" Aloy asked, reaching into the air. "How are you here? I thought you were destroyed."

"Not destroyed – dormant. My systems were built to endure the heaviest of threats. In the aftermath of... systems depleted. Powering down until charged."

"No!" Aloy cried. "No, I must know! Tell me about Elisabet! What was she like? You talked to her! Tell me, please!"

Her focus shut off, leaving her alone in her garden. She dropped to her knees where she stood, staring into the air, waiting for GAIA to come back. But she didn't, and Aloy was by herself. Her mind raced, trying to process everything, trying to make it make sense. She wanted it in front of her. She was good when it was in front of her, when she could see it, touch it, move it like she moved the projections on her Focus, but no amount of turning it on and off made GAIA return, and the hope of something she never knew she desired was gone.

Her arm bounced, a black snout coming up underneath it, wriggling until a wet, soggy head was pressed into the crook of her armpit. The bear snuffed at her red hair, black eyes blinking curiously. Aloy stared at it, unseeing until it burped dead fish in her face. She recoiled, gagging, pushing the putrid snout away. The bear chucked, pushing back until Aloy gave up, sitting back. The bear nudged her, pressing its face into her hand, wanting to keep playing, groaning when she wouldn't respond.

She stood suddenly, slinging her bow across her back. She stuck her fingers between her lips and whistled, a sharp shrill note. Within a minute a Broadhead was charging for the clearing. The bear shrieked as it stampeded towards them. It scrambled clumsily, waddling to its escape, but Aloy snagged it by the back of its neck before it could run. It was heavy and wriggled in her grip, but with both hands she could lift it. She held it out from her.

"You're coming with me."


	2. Avad

Avad knew this meeting would be long, but this was the third time he'd suppressed a yawn, the sixth time he'd stopped himself from rubbing his hand across his face and the tenth time he'd had to bite back on something he imagined Aloy would say to one of his council members. Thinking of her was the only thing keeping him going. What little patience Erend had looked to be fading as well. He twirled a knife, blade down, against the table, uncaring of the scores he left in the deeply coloured, carved wooden table. Avad knew he should be scolding him, reminding him of the decades the table had stood, the generations of Sun-Kings who had graced it with their work... but he was too bored to care right now, and wished he had his own knife so he could escape this hellish meeting.

"...and so the eastern cities just cannot abide by your sudden announcement. Not without a few years to prepare at least."

" _Your Radiance_ ," Blameless Marad reminded sternly. "You are in the presence of the Sun-King, Dolan, don't you forget that."

"Pardon?" Avad's senses came back to the room all at once, like when the head snaps back up after drooping from drowsiness.

Dolan of the south east city of Risen Rays scowled at Marad. His tan skin was beset with wrinkles, particularly around the eyes, but Avad doubted they were born from smiles. When he pursed his lips the carefully groomed triangle of hair on his chin screwed in upon itself, disappearing under the beginnings of a pout. "Apologies, your Radiance," he said, twisting the word in his mouth like a sour plum. "I was simply reminding you that our traditions are clear. How are we supposed to celebrate the coming of Spring and the return of the Sun without our traditions?"

"Perhaps with a ceremony that celebrates life rather than death," Avad answered calmly. He sat up straighter. Beside him, Erend stopped his fiddling, gripping the knife sideways in his hand. "Gentlemen-" His eyes flittered to Vanasha lingering in the shadows at the back of the room. "and Ladies, the Sun has seen enough blood in his lasting lifetime. The Leaves tell us of some of the horrors our glorious Sun has shined down upon, and so much more is to come, especially if the fighting pits remain open."

"Blood begets blood, begets blood," Vanasha murmured from the back of the room, her dark skin mingling with the shade, her purple thin strapped vest cropped at her midriff and the dark blue leggings draped in purple silks cast into the shadows. She liked to be close to doors, Avad had learned, and wear clothes she could move freely in. "The more blood we spill, the more we seem to want. A thirst that cannot be quenched, and when we drink too greedily what spills from our lips stains the land the sun shines upon with violence and greed. Do we really want to teach our children these lessons when there are better ways?"

Dolan's lip curled upwards. He shared looks and a few whispers with his fellow envoys from the south east, making Avad glad he'd decided these meetings were to be conducted per city. It meant around ten meetings a day that lasted hours, but he couldn't let the supporters amass together, nor the ones against the Fighting Pits. The first beginnings of war happened when sides formed. If he kept the meetings separate he may be able to hold on to some semblance of control.

Dolan finished having an advisor whisper in his ear, nodding with the sun gnarled man. Dolan returned his heavy gaze to Avad. His advisor glared at Vanasha. "I do not think the handmaidens should be voicing their little musings of these matters. The day is growing warm. Some drinks would be much appreciated if we are going to continue _uninterrupted_."

One of Vanasha's delicately sculpted eyebrows raised. "I agree. Fetch me some Sweet Summer wine, iced if you don't mind going down a flight of stairs. We'll fill you in when you return, though the conversation will be a little more... refined."

Dolan's face purpled. "No woman dressed like a whore will give me orders to bring her wine!"

"If you can't handle the stairs I will have it without ice," Vanasha simpered to him, smirking wickedly. Erend snickered at the table.

Avad silenced Erend with a gesture and Vanasha backed down from his stern look pointed her way. "There is no need to fight here. This is a meeting seeking peace. But on the road to peace we must compromise. I will draft terms and we will discuss them, and eventually we will resolve this matter on if the pits can be closed without wounding our traditions."

"There is no _if_ concerning our sacred pits-"

Erend slammed his knife into the table, the blade embedded three inches deep. "Hold your tongue while his Radiance speaks!"

"The day I let an Oseram brute order me silent is the day the sun falls from the sky!" Dolan roared, leaping to his feet.

"Carja, remember who we are!" Avad snapped, standing. The sun had reached its peak. The council room shuddered with tension, the heat tipping into boiling over at the next provocation. Avad watched each face carefully as he pulled himself to his full height. He reached out and pulled Erend's knife from the table. Dolan's personal guard tensed as he held the blade in his hand. Avad's guard at the door gripped the hilts of their swords or grasped their spears tightly. "We are not savages. None of us at this table are savages. We are Carja, we are Oseram, and soon we will have Nora, Banuk, Tenakth and Utaru among us." He levelled Dolan with a heavy look when the envoy tried to speak. "We came from that east, it is our heritage and now their home. We stole them from their homes, just like they drove us from ours. No one is innocent, no one person can be blamed, and if we cast that blame then we cannot call ourselves evolved. It is time the Sun finally shone upon us. All of us."

He dropped the knife onto the table.

Dolan growled, settling back into his seat, his face a storm slowly raining itself out as he realised his argument was lost. His envoys shared looks, with each other, or dark glances at the Oseram in the room or at Vanasha. "We cast our vote for the Sun pits to remain," Dolan said with icy finality. "When these gatherings are finished I hope you remember respect for traditions, Your Radiance. Your father did many horrible things, we do not deny that, but he at least respected our land."

Avad's jaw tensed so hard he could swear he felt his molars chip, but he remained silent. He nodded, and his guard opened the doors for Dolan and his men to leave. Marad lingered, watching his Sun-King, before following them out to collect the next group of envoys. When they were all safely gone, Avad collapsed back into his chair.

Erend snorted. "I called the southern Carja being the biggest assholes." He twisted in his seat to look at Vanasha. "Pay up."

"They were south _east_ ," Vanasha reminded, smirking triumphantly. "I'm still in the game. Talanah's probably at the lodge if you want to collect from her, though."

Erend laughed, reaching for his goblet and taking a deep drink. Over the years he'd managed to grasp a better hold of his, uh... habits. It showed in the defined lines of his face, the alcohol no longer swelling his cheeks or adding to his beer belly. In fact, when he went for long periods without drinking he was often regularly approached by the Carja woman of the city. When he did drink he was approached more by his own. But Avad knew times were stressful. The Oseram were growing irritable, the Banuk still isolated themselves and the Nora were resistant to allow envoys out of their Sacred Lands.

All but one.

Avad sighed again. Hair as rich as the Sun and a tongue just as sharp crossed his mind in a brief glimpse. It was all he could indulge himself while Aloy was gone, least he be distracted from his duties. He understood Erend's need for an occasional drink.

Vanasha cleared her throat from the back of the room.

"Come sit with us, no need to skulk anymore," Avad sighed, rubbing his temples. Since the return of his little brother, Itamen, Avad had gone through great lengths to keep Vanasha close. She minded being in his inner circle about as much as Erend minded a glass of wine.

Vanasha glided across the room and sank into the chair beside him, silky as water, and leaned back in her chair, watching him. She liked to do that, engage him with her eyes but never start the conversation. She knew he didn't like it. It became a game between them, who would break first. He wondered who else she played with.

As usual, he broke first. "Why must you always antagonise them?"

Vanasha shrugged. "I was thirsty."

"Aye," Erend toasted, and drank again.

"Maybe you should slow down," Vanasha suggested, though it didn't sound much like one. Erend grumbled, but sipped his next few draughts. Avad was still watching her when she turned back to him, knowing she had his attention, knowing she could keep it or dismiss it with a single glance. He loved and hated her talents, and loved and hated Aloy for suggesting her for his council. "You need to know the level of their prejudice, Your Radiance."

"Avad will do," Avad mumbled.

Vanasha smiled briefly, but it vanished when she remembered what she was saying. "These men are all going to resist you because you are change. They respect you for how you took your throne, despite the company you choose to keep." Erend grumbled into his glass. Vanasha reached out and snatched it from his hand in less than a blink. He squawked in protest as she held it away from him. "They dislike you and I on this council most of all, Oseram. You're an Outsider and I am a woman, even if I am a Carja woman. We are both as bad as each other in their eyes." She turned back to Avad, dark eyes full and serious. "You need to know how much your supposed supporters will resist your ideals. So far Dolan has been the biggest pig brought to the spit. The South Eastern Cities despise your Gender Equality, the West still capture slaves and the North refuse to accept any tribe outside of the Carja – unfortunately that doesn't include the Shadow Carja."

"Your point, Vanasha?" Avad groaned.

"Is, if you hadn't interrupted, that despite all their different reasons to hate Erend and I, they all share one dislike of you."

"The Sun Pits," Avad filled in and Vanasha nodded. Erend swallowed, looking at his wine in Vanasha's hand. "Well, do you have any advice for me? That is why you're here after all."

Vanasha arched an eyebrow at the petulant outburst, and Avad flushed at his childishness. "My advice is for you to not take on more than you can handle, Avad. You want to give the slaves freedom. You want the Carja to accept outsider tribes. You want to disband the Shadow Carja. You want to close the Sun Pits. You have goodness in your heart yet give them too many reasons to band against you. Choose one goal, finish it. Choose another, finish it. Get them on your side. Tribe by Tribe."

Avad closed his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose. Vanasha had many things he didn't, talents he would never have. She had a tactful mind. A cunning mind. A mind that could slip a prince out of a palace under the nose of his guards. But she didn't have a rulers mind. "I cannot wait," Avad sighed. "If I wait, they gain ground on me. I become the Sun-King who bowed to one tradition or another and soon they will all be on my heels, snapping, biting, thinking they can keep taking. I won't be my father and bang my fist at anyone who won't obey or have them slaughtered. This is a new Kingdom, for everyone in it. My subjects and for myself. A new Sun rises on a new Sundom."

And he believed it. Change was needed, so it would come. By his hand or some others. That was the world. He'd never thought much of the Nora before. Calling them savages had never been his intent, yet he couldn't deny their... simpler ways. But Aloy had changed that for him. She'd truly opened his mind to everything his father had done to the east, and now he was going to rectify it, tribe by tribe, envoy by envoy, mind by mind.

Vanasha sighed, shaking her head. "You are my Sun-King. I advise you, as does Erend and Marad. Whether you chose to heed it is your own choice."

"I heed," Avad admitted. "most of the time you don't give me a choice." Vanasha smiled at that. "and you, Erend. I heed your advice when you choose to give it."

"My fists are better at talking than I am," Erend said, grinning and shrugging at his own folly, so truthful he would even point them out in himself.

"Enough wine and you talk more than he could ever possibly listen to," Vanasha said, but smiled fondly at Erend.

"You haven't seen me full of Oseram brew yet," he teased back, never once insulted.

It had taken five years, but Avad's love for the two at his table had grown stronger than he ever imagined. He needed them like he needed Marad. He longed for their playful jests and how they could laugh at each other without insult or injury of pride, yet still call on their flaws. Erend's drinking wouldn't be as under control without Vanasha or Avad himself. He needed their serious council, Vanasha's brutal honesty and Erend's simple truths, and he couldn't imagine ruling without them now.

Marad appeared in the doorway. "The envoys from the South City Sun Spear are here for their meeting."

Avad allowed himself a heavy sigh, then waved them in. They entered behind a man layered in robes, light yellow flowing out from under blood red and sunburst orange, a headdress of painted Glint Hawk feathers adorning his brow. Erend took one look at him then leaned across the table and took his goblet back from Vanasha, drinking deeply.

"Aris of Sun Spear, welcome," Avad greeted, standing for his guests. The envoy nodded once and took his seat. The south were not known for their charms, nor their patience. Avad sat and immediately began. "I have summoned you here for a matter of great importance-"

The door to the bottom of the meet tower burst open, the bang of wood striking stone echoing all the way up the tower and into their room. The guards, leaning on the walls, jumped to attention, running out into the corridor.

"I am sorry for this intrusion," Avad apologised. He glanced at Erend. The Oseram needed no more instruction, grabbing his hammer resting against the back of his chair and stomped out into the hallway. Avad felt heat creeping up the back of his neck. "My deepest apologies-"

"I am seeing Avad, now!"

His apologies stopped at the voice. A second later a red faced Erend rushed back into the room. His hammer was gone and he was stuttering. "I-I think his Radiance needs to reschedule this meeting."

Aris's brow furrowed. "We were promised an audience with his Radiance-"

"Stop her!"

Erend leaped aside as a whirlwind of red hair and jangling hunters charms swept through the doorway, a force even Avad's guards had learned not to get in the way of. She stopped by Erend. He was failing to suppress his grin as she held out his hammer to him.

"You dropped this," she said, thrusting it into his hands. Vanasha was wide eyed, smiling in amazement as Aloy stomped into the centre of the room. She leaned over the table. "I need to talk to you."

Avad could do nothing more than nod.

"Your Radiance," Aris hissed. "I have travelled far from-"

"I rode across the world!" Aloy snapped at the gilded envoy. She turned back to Avad. "Send them out. We need to talk, now."

"A Nora savage will not interrupt a diplomatic meeting," Aris said, managing to stay calm. Vanasha must of been right, the south only hated woman out of their place.

Aloy's eyes narrowed at the Carja man she didn't know, and Avad knew how badly this could go. Aloy was wise from her travels and had a military mind, but she still hated strangers when they talked to her like that. He waited for her bow to be drawn or the spear to be unsheathed. His guards twitched.

Aloy whistled.

Nothing happened until it was right in his face, the furry brown creature pattering silently into the room and leaping onto his table. Its tongue lolled between large white teeth. It sniffed Avad's face once, then turned its snuffling to the table. It wandered across, squatted directly in front of Aris and pissed. The guards were frozen, everyone in the room was frozen. Only Aloy wasn't staring at the brown creature pissing on his polished, ancient wooden table.

Aloy glared at Aris. "That diplomatic enough for you?"


End file.
